I'm glad you took some time to talk about good level design Up to this point we've seen a lot of bad, so to hear a step by step of what makes something good is nice!
It's neat seeing marathon getting a little revival, sucks that it took so long for these games to finally get the attention they deserved. Infinity was always my least favorite of the 3 games, I got stuck on it as a kid and didn't end up actually beating it until 7 or 8 years after it came out, lel. M2 was the best imo, my favorite for level, enemy and texture design. Love those bright vibrant colors and weird alien looking tiles in the second game. Infinity's level design is straight up confusing and everything looks mostly the same with the dark greys and browns of the textures. The Flechette SMG was a great addition though! Good video, glad I stumbled upon your channel, love boomer shooters and will watch through the whole series you got. Hope you get more views on this once that lame 'remake' or whatever it is of Marathon comes out, I'm sure the hype is gonna big when it does come out.
Yeah, them coming to Steam (and now with Steam Workshop) is great, and I'm glad fans have tried their best to revive it, and I hope these Steam releases bring more attention to this series now that they're more clearly accessible to people.
I'm playing through the trilogy right now. Marathon Infinity is definitely a pain with the first level instantly giving me more trouble than I've had in this whole series so far, only comparable to the time I got softlocked in Marathon 1. And then level 3 (Poor Yorick) was already not making matters any better. This game is already being a pain for me to want to do it, but hearing that it'll get better in the second half at least makes me hopeful and happy for when I get there.
this game was meant to be difficult and disorienting, as well as a deliberate call back to the cramped corridors fans missed from Marathon 1. imagined as a game desgined for the hardcore series fans, history is important.
Once you reach the end of this series and you hit Halo what do you think about revisiting some of the smaller topics such as level design you touched on in this video? Meaning like rather than make another video on a specific FPS game talk about how these old school FPS games utilized level design and how they design their level and the progression of level design up until Halo from Wolfenstein.
I might very well do exactly that! My goal for the channel is to do a lot more analytical content rather than reviews. The secret purpose of this series was to essentially cut my teeth on video production, to force myself to put out a video every week and iteratively improve. The review angle was just sort of the path I used to get there. Once I wrap up this series, I'll be taking a break (cause I've basically been crunching for 8 months straight), then starting to work on some more analytical videos. I haven't decided yet exactly what topics I'll be covering first. I'm sure it'll partly depend on if I feel too burnt out on talking about first person shooters for a year straight. But one of the ideas I've been kicking around is a series on sort of "what we can learn from boomer shooters". What makes different aspects of their design tick, what works and what doesn't. That said, I have been waiting a long time to play Elden Ring ;) and about a dozen other games as well. I'll figure it out when I get there.
@@TalkingSkullGames Another channel Pandamonium has been doing a series covering the history of every US Sega Saturn game in release order. He delves into thr production history, culture at the time, company standing, does individual developer interviews, etc. This series of yours reminded me a lot of that, but on a smaller, simpler scale. I liked how you didn't just review the game, but talked about their design and history, and especially in this progress/evolutionary fashion. I'm not 100% of your background, but you definitely seem to be a fan of old school shooters and pc gaming. (I have absolutely no idea what Save Scumming is btw, haha.) On the idea of "What can we learn from boomer shooters?", I'd personally suggest "What has the industry learned from boomer shooters?", provided you're still up for talking about old school shooters. Maybe that could be the Thesis behind a series of videos each with a focus in a particular aspect; weapon sandbox, map design, story, etc. If you're burnt from shooters, from my pov I just love game history, so you wouldn't lose me if you kept that angle. I've found that I love hearing about things in development, but even more so when it feels from so long ago. Something I've never really like are videos like "Why there will never be another game like X", or "What makes X so amazing/bad", etc. It's easy to have an opinion. It's hard to do your research.
Poor Yorick level was my most hated level. Second only to that is Aie Mak Sicur, which was the failed timeline version and was so punishing and difficult that the final level it copies felt like a cakewalk.
I think you missed the point of this game. When I got this game I only had a Mac computer. Not many games available. This game took me many days to complete and I appreciated that.
You're absolutely right that many games in the 90's were designed to be artificially longer via obtuse design or difficulty. In Marathon: Infinity's case, I don't know that I'd consider wandering around empty corridors in confusion to be engaging or fun, even in the context of 90's games trying to fill kids' time. There were other ways. Thanks for the comment!
@@TalkingSkullGames it was not designed this way to be artificially long, it was designed this way to be difficult, to the series' hardcore fans, as well the intra-developer competitiveness to make the most challenging and complex levels possible amongst their coworkers. by the release of Infinity, people had done Total Carnage, fist-only, full game runs on Marathon 1 for almost three years (that were all viewable via the game's replay video system, 20 odd years before twitch)..., knowing that gamers back then didnt view this as frustrating but as a welcomed challenge from the developer dungeon masters, to be overcome.
is it bad level design to simply be passe? thats what im hearing in this video... remember that the "artificial" constraints on Souls games, are considered inseparable from the enjoyment of them. gamers had a much higher tolerance for difficulty in those days..., consider i beat Marathon 1 a dozen times at launch, but only when i replayed it recently did i feel any sense of frustration or confusion...., back then it was just "fun" to figure things out, and yes, one did take their time more with every game purchased, we were poor kids after all, fascinating and memorable trilogy overall.
@@broganat0r There's a difference between something designed well to be difficult and puzzling and something that's just obtusely designed due to poor quality like in FromSoft's games and Marathon Infinity though
Thank you again for your amazing videos :) You capture perfectly the details and nuances of my childhood and I cannot thank you enough for it.
That's fantastic to hear! Thank you for watching :D
*litterally punches the panel*
my ability to play a game correctly and have it not work is unfathomable to me as well ._.
You have a gift. A terrible, useless, miserable gift :D
on of the Best Maps in the Marathon Saga is "What about Bob" from Marathon 2. Its an easy to understand, forward leading interesting Map.
I'm glad you took some time to talk about good level design
Up to this point we've seen a lot of bad, so to hear a step by step of what makes something good is nice!
It's neat seeing marathon getting a little revival, sucks that it took so long for these games to finally get the attention they deserved. Infinity was always my least favorite of the 3 games, I got stuck on it as a kid and didn't end up actually beating it until 7 or 8 years after it came out, lel. M2 was the best imo, my favorite for level, enemy and texture design. Love those bright vibrant colors and weird alien looking tiles in the second game. Infinity's level design is straight up confusing and everything looks mostly the same with the dark greys and browns of the textures. The Flechette SMG was a great addition though! Good video, glad I stumbled upon your channel, love boomer shooters and will watch through the whole series you got. Hope you get more views on this once that lame 'remake' or whatever it is of Marathon comes out, I'm sure the hype is gonna big when it does come out.
Yeah, them coming to Steam (and now with Steam Workshop) is great, and I'm glad fans have tried their best to revive it, and I hope these Steam releases bring more attention to this series now that they're more clearly accessible to people.
I'm playing through the trilogy right now. Marathon Infinity is definitely a pain with the first level instantly giving me more trouble than I've had in this whole series so far, only comparable to the time I got softlocked in Marathon 1. And then level 3 (Poor Yorick) was already not making matters any better. This game is already being a pain for me to want to do it, but hearing that it'll get better in the second half at least makes me hopeful and happy for when I get there.
this game was meant to be difficult and disorienting, as well as a deliberate call back to the cramped corridors fans missed from Marathon 1. imagined as a game desgined for the hardcore series fans, history is important.
Once you reach the end of this series and you hit Halo what do you think about revisiting some of the smaller topics such as level design you touched on in this video? Meaning like rather than make another video on a specific FPS game talk about how these old school FPS games utilized level design and how they design their level and the progression of level design up until Halo from Wolfenstein.
I might very well do exactly that! My goal for the channel is to do a lot more analytical content rather than reviews. The secret purpose of this series was to essentially cut my teeth on video production, to force myself to put out a video every week and iteratively improve. The review angle was just sort of the path I used to get there.
Once I wrap up this series, I'll be taking a break (cause I've basically been crunching for 8 months straight), then starting to work on some more analytical videos.
I haven't decided yet exactly what topics I'll be covering first. I'm sure it'll partly depend on if I feel too burnt out on talking about first person shooters for a year straight. But one of the ideas I've been kicking around is a series on sort of "what we can learn from boomer shooters". What makes different aspects of their design tick, what works and what doesn't.
That said, I have been waiting a long time to play Elden Ring ;) and about a dozen other games as well. I'll figure it out when I get there.
@@TalkingSkullGames Another channel Pandamonium has been doing a series covering the history of every US Sega Saturn game in release order. He delves into thr production history, culture at the time, company standing, does individual developer interviews, etc.
This series of yours reminded me a lot of that, but on a smaller, simpler scale. I liked how you didn't just review the game, but talked about their design and history, and especially in this progress/evolutionary fashion.
I'm not 100% of your background, but you definitely seem to be a fan of old school shooters and pc gaming. (I have absolutely no idea what Save Scumming is btw, haha.)
On the idea of "What can we learn from boomer shooters?", I'd personally suggest "What has the industry learned from boomer shooters?", provided you're still up for talking about old school shooters. Maybe that could be the Thesis behind a series of videos each with a focus in a particular aspect; weapon sandbox, map design, story, etc.
If you're burnt from shooters, from my pov I just love game history, so you wouldn't lose me if you kept that angle. I've found that I love hearing about things in development, but even more so when it feels from so long ago.
Something I've never really like are videos like "Why there will never be another game like X", or "What makes X so amazing/bad", etc. It's easy to have an opinion. It's hard to do your research.
Poor Yorick level was my most hated level. Second only to that is Aie Mak Sicur, which was the failed timeline version and was so punishing and difficult that the final level it copies felt like a cakewalk.
I think you missed the point of this game. When I got this game I only had a Mac computer. Not many games available. This game took me many days to complete and I appreciated that.
You're absolutely right that many games in the 90's were designed to be artificially longer via obtuse design or difficulty. In Marathon: Infinity's case, I don't know that I'd consider wandering around empty corridors in confusion to be engaging or fun, even in the context of 90's games trying to fill kids' time. There were other ways.
Thanks for the comment!
@@TalkingSkullGames it was not designed this way to be artificially long, it was designed this way to be difficult, to the series' hardcore fans, as well the intra-developer competitiveness to make the most challenging and complex levels possible amongst their coworkers. by the release of Infinity, people had done Total Carnage, fist-only, full game runs on Marathon 1 for almost three years (that were all viewable via the game's replay video system, 20 odd years before twitch)..., knowing that gamers back then didnt view this as frustrating but as a welcomed challenge from the developer dungeon masters, to be overcome.
is it bad level design to simply be passe? thats what im hearing in this video... remember that the "artificial" constraints on Souls games, are considered inseparable from the enjoyment of them. gamers had a much higher tolerance for difficulty in those days..., consider i beat Marathon 1 a dozen times at launch, but only when i replayed it recently did i feel any sense of frustration or confusion...., back then it was just "fun" to figure things out, and yes, one did take their time more with every game purchased, we were poor kids after all, fascinating and memorable trilogy overall.
@@broganat0r There's a difference between something designed well to be difficult and puzzling and something that's just obtusely designed due to poor quality like in FromSoft's games and Marathon Infinity though
Oni vid when?
We'll see how I feel about it x_x
Video: "Smash, smash, how do I smash?"
My dumb brain: Or pass. Smash or pass.
OH you should do a smash or pass on FPS protags. lol
The variety in 1000 gruff macho men might be too much to handle :P